Pan And Luna

Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was,     Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines!     No question, that adventure came to pass     One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines,     Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass     Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines,     The sky's embrace, below, above, around,     All hardened into black without a bound.     Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim     With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice:     See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim,     Turns marble to the touch of who would loose     The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim,     By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse     Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less,     Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness.     And thus it proved when, diving into space,     Stript of all vapor, from each web of mist,     Utterly film-free, entered on her race     The naked Moon, full-orbed antagonist     Of night and dark, night's dowry: peak to base,     Upstarted mountains, and each valley, kissed     To sudden life, lay silver-bright: in air     Flew she revealed, Maid-Moon with limbs all bare.     Still as she fled, each depth, where refuge seemed     Opening a lone pale chamber, left distinct     Those limbs: mid still-retreating blue, she teemed     Herself with whiteness, virginal, uncinct     By any halo save what finely gleamed     To outline not disguise her: heavenwas linked     In one accord with earth to quaff the joy,     Drain beauty to the dregs without alloy.     Whereof she grew aware. What help? When, lo,     A succorable cloud with sleep lay dense:     Some pinetree-top had caught it sailing slow,     And tethered for a prize: in evidence     Captive lay fleece on fleece of piled-up snow     Drowsily patient: flake-heaped how or whence,     The structure of that succorable cloud,     What matter? Shamed she plunged into its shroud.     Orbed, so the woman-figure poets call     Because of rounds on rounds, that apple-shaped     Head which its hair binds close into a ball     Each side the curving ears, that pure undraped     Pout of the sister paps, that . . . once for all,     Say, her consummate circle thus escaped     With its innumerous circlets, sank absorbed,     Safe in the cloud, O naked Moon full-orbed!     But what means this? The downy swathes combine,     Conglobe, the smothery coy-caressing stuff     Curdles about her! Vain each twist and twine     Those lithe limbs try, encroached on by a fluff     Fitting as close as fits the dented spine     Its flexible ivory outside-flesh: enough!     The plumy drifts contract, condense, constringe,     Till she is swallowed by the feathery springe.     As when a pearl slips lost in the thin foam     Churned on a sea-shore, and, o'er-frothed, conceits     Herself safe-housed in Amphitrite's dome,     If, through the bladdery wave-worked yeast, she meets     What most she loathes and leaps from, elf from gnome     No gladlier, finds that safest of retreats     Bubble about a treacherous hand wide ope     To grasp her, (divers who pick pearls so grope),     So lay this Maid-Moon clasped around and caught     By rough red Pan, the god of all that tract:     He it was schemed the snare thus subtly wrought     With simulated earth-breath, wool-tufts packed     Into a billowy wrappage. Sheep far-sought     For spotless shearings yield such: take the fact     As learned Virgil gives it, how the breed     Whitens itself forever: yes, indeed!     If one forefather ram, though pure as chalk     From tinge on fleece, should still display a tongue     Black 'neath the beast's moist palate, prompt men balk     The propagating plague: he gets no young:     They rather slay him, sell his hide to calk     Ships with, first steeped with pitch, nor hands are wrung     In sorrow for his fate: protected thus,     The purity we loved is gained for us. So did girl-Moon, by just her attribute     Of unmatched modesty betrayed, lie trapped,     Bruised to the breast of Pan, half god half brute,     Raked by his bristly boar-sward while he lapped     Never say, kissed her! that were to pollute     Love's language, which moreover proves unapt     To tell how she recoiled, as who finds thorns     Where she sought flowers, when, feeling, she touched, horns!     Then, does the legend say? first moon-eclipse     Happened, first swooning-fit which puzzled sore     The early sages? Is that why she dips     Into the dark, a minute and no more,     Only so long as serves her while she rips     The cloud's womb through and, faultless as before,     Pursues her way? No lesson for a maid     Left she, a maid herself thus trapped, betrayed?     Ha, Virgil? Tell the rest, you! "To the deep     Of his domain the wildwood, Pan forthwith     Called her, and so she followed", in her sleep,     Surely? "by no means spurning him." The myth     Explain who may! Let all else go, I keep     As of a ruin just a monolith,     Thus much, one verse of five words, each a boon:     Arcadia, night, a cloud, Pan, and the moon.